


From the Moon to the Earth

by grey



Category: Moon (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:43:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grey/pseuds/grey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's so much of it, both blood and memories, coming out of him as if from nowhere. He's really sick, sicker than he'd ever thought; the word he can't stand to think right now is <i>dying</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Moon to the Earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heinrichfrei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heinrichfrei/gifts).



"The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it." - _The Velveteen Rabbit_ , Margery Williams

\---

Sam Bell -- the real Sam Bell, the original -- was an only child. Like many lonely boys, he'd had an imaginary brother, one that only he could see. His name was Mr. Smith, probably because of _The New Lost In Space_ , and he was just like Sam. Together they'd played in the tree-fort in Sam's back yard, heedless of curfew or suppertime. They'd soared through the air on a zeppelin, sailed down rivers lined by crocodiles, and journeyed to the center of the Earth, all through the magic of fifty dollars worth of nails and rough-hewn pine boards.

And, of course, they'd been to the moon.

Sam Bell -- the fifth Sam Bell, the clone -- remembers this, even though he was never really there. It comes to him now, as the shower beats down on his hunched shoulders, washing the blood down the drain. He watches it swirl in soft, red ribbons, like clouds slipping away through the grate in the floor. There's so much of it, both blood and memories, coming out of him as if from nowhere. He's really sick, sicker than he'd ever thought; the word he can't stand to think right now is _dying_.

Sam thinks of the other guy, the other one of him, who looks like he hasn't been sick a day in his life. He's quick and strong, the way Sam was strong when he first ( _came to life_ ) came to Sarang Base. The other Sam doesn't start gasping after three minutes of jump-rope. He doesn't sweat buckets when he runs on the treadmill. He doesn't bruise like a banana when GERTY's actuator arm bumps into him. Sam had thought it was because he'd gotten soft, because he'd gotten a little lazy all alone on the moon. He'd figured it might be because the packets of beans and carrots and potted beef didn't have much nutrition in 'em. He'd always thought he'd grow strong again after he finished his contract, back on Earth.

Now he knows: there is no contract. There never was. The room under the "return vehicle" means there never will be. Loose hair and lost teeth and blood-vomit have spoken, and the only word they have to say is the one he can't bear to think.

He coughs, weakly, and then coughing turns into retching again, until his ribs ache and his mouth is rich with copper. He rolls over, spits, and then lies there, letting the water wash the dribbles off his chin.

"GERTY?" he slurs. "GERTY? A lil' help here?"

\---

Sam remembers the first time he -- the first Sam -- met GERTY. He'd been excited about that; E-class AIs barely existed outside of chip-fab facilities and million-dollar science labs, yet he was going to get to partner with one for three years. He remembers training for the first time in Lunar's mock-up of Sarang Base: white walls, white floors, a white box with a smiling face on a screen.

"Nice to meet you," he'd said to the box. "I'm Sam Bell."

He'd put out his hand, but the box hadn't known how to shake hands yet. Its arm had twitched on its track. "Hello," it had said. "My name is GERTY."

That'd been the extent of their small talk. He'd been disappointed in GERTY, then, let down because he -- it -- didn't know how to shake, or talk about sports, or laugh at jokes. He'd decided, after only one day, that GERTY was no more real than a TV set.

He has another memory, though. This time it's one of his, a true memory of his own (at least, he thinks so). He'd had one of the Helium-3 canisters, and he hadn't been looking where he was going. He'd caught his foot on one of the bay transitions, and with the canister in his hand he'd had no chance to catch himself. He remembers how he'd flung it out before him, how he'd crashed down on its sharp metal edge. He remembers the way he'd flopped over onto the floor, staring up at the cold blank ceiling, with his breath coming in short spikes of pain.

It had hurt to move. Raw agony had struck him when he'd tried to lever his shoulder down and push himself up. He'd cried for GERTY, then, and GERTY had come. GERTY had helped him up, supporting his shoulder with kind, gentle actuators, and had taken him to the infirmary. There, GERTY had wrapped his chest for him -- a bruised clavicle, he'd said, better in a few weeks -- and had blinked a frowny-face for him, and had asked him if he would like a meal.

Sam still remembered what he'd said at the end: "Please get better soon, Sam. I always worry about you when you're not well."

Sam's head told him that GERTY was nothing more than a bunch of glitchy software in a plastic box... but sometimes, every now and then, his heart told him that there was something real in there. Some _one_ real. By the beginning of his third year of isolation, Sam spoke to GERTY like a friend.

Just like his plants.

\---

It's getting worse. GERTY comes and helps Sam out of the shower, like in his memory, but he can barely walk. It takes him a good ten minutes to get his clothes on, and another five to stumble out to where the other Sam is.

There are three Sams, now. The one in the infirmary is dead, or not yet alive, and the other Sam wants to kill him.

Sam can't stop coughing. He can barely push himself up off the wall. By the time he staggers back to the showers, he knows that other-Sam's plan is not going to work. He'll never be able to get into the Helium-3 pod, never be able to go back to Earth. His legs aren't working anymore, and even the pain keeps fading in and out, replaced by a cold, distant prickle as his nerve endings die. It's like being wrapped up in static. The close metal walls are hard against his back, against his shoulder, leeching all the warmth out of him. His pictures are there beside him: the one with Tess at the ground-breaking ceremony, his Mom and Pop, his precious little photo of Eve. As he watches, though, the latter blurs into a smear of blue. Beneath it, there are rows of smiley-faces that say "two weeks", but there's no point anymore. His breath whistles through clogged lungs. He is dying, every inch of him, every cell breaking down.

He had a three-year contract.

Now, now that it's him or newborn-Sam, he can face it clearly. The other Sam's sudden approach helps, too. Sam is real, more real than GERTY, no question of that. He's big and strong, so alive it hurts. He kneels down close and says "What're you talkin' about, man? She's your daughter, she doesn't care what you look like!" He grins like they're in a late-night diner somewhere, back on Earth, chatting over coffee and eggs about something that doesn't really matter. It makes Sam feel strong, too, strong enough to like himself. He lifts his chin and says "You go. You're a good guy, Sam," and "it was a good plan, y'know, you just picked the wrong guy to go back". It really _doesn't_ matter, now. Not now, not at the end.

It takes one hour of their remaining three to get him into his spacesuit. By the end, other-Sam has to hold him up bodily, yanking the bulky suit up over his armpits. It's warm, and Sam can barely think anymore. He keeps nodding off, lulled by long-lost touch. He wants to hold, and to be held, just like a child; he wants to grab Sam and squeeze him and never, ever let go. But he can't, because he knows Sam can't let him. He knows because he _was_ Sam, once, and he remembers what it was like not to know. It's like being a strange sort of Cassandra. He wants to shout, wants to scream -- three years, three years! -- but he doesn't. He can't, and not just because he's barely breathing. Sam already knows, surely he knows, he's not fucking _stupid_.

He is going to Earth, to Earth, to find no life at all.

The other Sam has to carry him out to the rover, like a sleeping infant. Or a dead man. It takes another fifteen minutes to get him in there, propped up against the edge of the seat like a crash-test mannequin. It hurts, everything hurts, but he's ready, now. He's ready.

One last memory.

"You remember Tess came in for that interview?" he says. It's hard, hard to talk, but he does. He has to. "She was so beautiful. She wasn't the best candidate, but it didn't matter. I had to give her the job. I wanted to keep her in the country..."

He and Sam finish it together. "She was going back to Ireland," he says, and Sam says it with him. Then Sam is telling the rest of the story, and he's tired, too tired to help anymore.

It doesn't matter. It's Sam's story, too.

\---

He loses it for a while. When he can feel again, he's in the crashed rover, nestled against the seat. He can see just a bit, out through the blood and vomit crusted on the inside of his helmet. It's blue. Everything's blue. Nothing hurts anymore; his nerves are long gone, burnt out like dead circuits, like the inside of GERTY's box, like a cocoon of white noise. He listens, but all he can hear is his own breathing, ragged and very loud inside the helmet.

He opens his eyes again, sometime later, and sees something which isn't blue. His brother is there, streaking across the sky on a trail of fire. Going to Earth, to the center of the Earth, to a life that'll be, in all its brevity, the bravest and most important life Sam Bell has ever known.

Sam can almost feel the pine boards beneath his hands.


End file.
